Reply to Anyone been here since the 80s / early 90s? How did smart locals react to Marion Barry

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m black, moved to DC recently, and also wonder about this.  I recall him being seen as a joke in national news growing up.  Also don’t understand his appeal among DC natives, and their willingness to excuse his major indiscretions.[/quote]

I'm a native DC'er black and grew up in upper NW. It's actually very simple. Marion Barry simply believed that it was his purpose to uplift Black people. You see on these threads all the time, "why don't middle class Black people help poor Blacks" - well he believed this and acted upon it. I don't think you'll ever have a Black leader come to power again and do that so openly. [u]Even Obama couldn't do it. [/u]

He also has great ideas and vision but his big failure wasn't so much the personal stuff - it was that he was a terrible manager. And his desire to help, overrode any ability to judge the character of others or say no to people. He really was a people pleaser in every way possible.

He had a lot of support from whites and Jews in upper NW for his first run. I just hate it when people paint him with a black and white brush - hehehehee. He is a much more nuanced character and very fascinating, IMO. I was embarrassed by him as well. But looking back, no matter what people say, he did help a lot of Black people for the better.

[/quote]

He didn't come from a black family and wasn't raised in black culture.  He had to marry into it, which isn't really the same.[/quote]

What does that have to do with anything? The point is that if Obama's true desire was to explicitly help black people, he couldn't because of the backlash he would've faced. This has nothing to do with who he married or his background.[/quote]

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